In the field of telephony communication, there have been many improvements in technology over the years that have contributed to more efficient use of telephone communication within hosted call-center environments. Most of these improvements involve integrating the telephones and switching systems in such call centers with computer hardware and software adapted for, among other things, better routing of telephone calls, faster delivery of telephone calls and associated information, and improved service with regard to client satisfaction. Such computer-enhanced telephony is known in the art as computer-telephony integration (CTI). Generally speaking, CTI implementations of various design and purpose are implemented both within individual call-centers and, in some cases, at the telephone network level. For example, processors running CTI software applications may be linked to telephone switches, service control points (SCP), and network entry points within a public or private telephone network. At the call-center level, CTI-enhanced processors, data servers, transaction servers, and the like, are linked to telephone switches and, in some cases, to similar CTI hardware at the network level, often by a dedicated digital link. CTI processors and other hardware within a call-center is commonly referred to as customer premises equipment (CPE). It is the CTI processor and application software is such centers that provides computer enhancement to a call center.
In a CTI-enhanced call center, telephones at agent stations are connected to a central telephony switching apparatus, such as an automatic call distributor (ACD) switch or a private branch exchange (PBX). The agent stations may also be equipped with computer terminals such as personal computer/video display units (PCNVDU) so that agents manning such stations may have access to stored data as well as being linked to incoming callers by telephone equipment. Such stations may be interconnected through the PC VDU by a local area network (LAN). One or more data or transaction servers may also be connected to the LAN that interconnects agent stations. The LAN is, in turn, typically connected to the CTI processor, which is connected to the call switching apparatus of the call center.
When a call arrives at a call center, whether or not the call has been pre-processed at an SCP, typically at least the telephone number of the calling line is made available to the receiving switch at the call center by the network provider. This service is available by most networks as caller-ID information in one of several formats such as Automatic Number Identification (ANI). Typically the number called is also available through a service such as Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS). If the call center is computer-enhanced (CTI), the phone number of the calling party may be used as a key to access additional information from a customer information system (CIS) database at a server on the network that connects the agent workstations. In this manner information pertinent to a call may be provided to an agent, often as a screen pop on the agent's PCNVDU.
In recent years, advances in computer technology, telephony equipment, and infrastructure have provided many opportunities for improving telephone service in publicly switched and private telephone intelligent networks. Similarly, development of a separate information and data network known as the Internet, together with advances in computer hardware and software have led to a new multimedia telephone system known in the art by several names. In this new systemology, telephone calls are simulated by multimedia computer equipment, and data, such as audio data, is transmitted over data networks as data packets. In this system the broad term used to describe such computer-simulated telephony is Data Network Telephony (DNT).
For purposes of nomenclature and definition, the inventors wish to distinguish clearly between what might be called conventional telephony, which is the telephone service enjoyed by nearly all citizens through local telephone companies and several long-distance telephone network providers, and what has been described herein as computer-simulated telephony or data-network telephony. The conventional systems are referred to herein as Connection-Oriented Switched-Telephony (COST) systems, CTI enhanced or not.
The computer-simulated, or DNT systems are familiar to those who use and understand computers and data-network systems. Perhaps the best example of DNT is telephone service provided over the Internet, which will be referred to herein as Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT), by far the most extensive, but still a subset of DNT.
Both systems use signals transmitted over network links. In fact, connection to data networks for DNT such as IPNT is typically accomplished over local telephone lines, used to reach points in the network such as an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The definitive difference is that COST telephony may be considered to be connection-oriented telephony. In the COST system, calls are placed and connected by a specific dedicated path, and the connection path is maintained over the time of the call. Bandwidth is basically assured. Other calls and data do not share a connected channel path in a COST system. A DNT system, on the other hand, is not dedicated or connection-oriented. That is, data, including audio data, is prepared, sent, and received as data packets over a data-network. The data packets share network links, and may travel by varied and variable paths.
Recent improvements to available technologies associated with the transmission and reception of data packets during real-time DNT communication have enabled companies to successfully add DNT, principally IPNT, capabilities to existing CTI call centers. Such improvements, as described herein and known-to the inventor, include methods for guaranteeing available bandwidth or quality of service (QOS) for a transaction, improved mechanisms for organizing, coding, compressing, and carrying data more efficiently using less bandwidth, and methods and apparatus for intelligently replacing lost data via using voice supplementation methods and enhanced buffering capabilities.
In addition to Internet protocol (IPNT) calls, a DNT center may also share other forms of media with customers accessing the system through their computers. E-mails, video mails, fax, file share, file transfer, video calls, and so forth are some of the other forms of media, which may be used. This capability of handling varied media leads to the term multimedia communications center. A multimedia communications center may be a combination CTI and DNT center, or may be a DNT center capable of receiving COST calls and converting them to a digital DNT format. The term communication center will replace the term call center hereinafter in this specification when referring to multi-media capabilities.
In typical communication centers, DNT is accomplished by Internet connection and IPNT calls. For this reason, IPNT and the Internet will be used in examples to follow. IT should be understood, however, that this usage is exemplary, and not limiting.
In systems known to the inventors, incoming IPNT calls are processed and routed within an IPNT-capable communication center in much the same way as COST calls are routed in a CTI-enhanced call-center, using similar or identical routing rules, waiting queues, and so on, aside from the fact that there are two separate networks involved. Communication centers having both CTI and IPNT capability utilize LAN-connected agent-stations with each station having a telephony-switch-connected headset or phone, and a PC connected, in most cases via LAN, to the network carrying the IPNT calls. Therefore, in most cases, IPNT calls are routed to the agent's PC while conventional telephony calls are routed to the agent's conventional telephone or headset. Typically separate lines and equipment must be implemented for each type of call weather COST or IPNT.
Due in part to added costs associated with additional equipment, lines, and data ports that are needed to add IPNT capability to a CTI-enhanced call-center, companies are currently experimenting with various forms of integration between the older COST system and the newer IPNT system. For example, by enhancing data servers, interactive voice response units (IVR), agent-connecting networks, and so on, with the capability of conforming to Internet protocol, call data arriving from either network may be integrated requiring less equipment and lines to facilitate processing, storage, and transfer of data.
With many new communication products supporting various media types available to businesses and customers, a communication center must add significant application software to accommodate the diversity. For example, e-mail programs have differing parameters than do IP applications. IP applications are different regarding protocol than COST calls, and so on. Separate routing systems and/or software components are needed for routing e-mails, IP calls, COST calls, file sharing, etc. Agents must then be trained in the use of a variety of applications supporting the different types of media.
Keeping contact histories, reporting statistics, creating routing rules and the like becomes more complex as newer types of media are added to communication center capability. Additional hardware implementations such as servers, processors, etc. are generally required to aid full multimedia communication and reporting. Therefore, it is desirable that interactions of all multimedia sorts be analyzed, recorded, and routed according to enterprise (business) rules in a manner that provides seamless integration between media types and application types, thereby allowing agents to respond intelligently and efficiently to customer queries and problems.
One challenge that is ever present in a communications center is the ability to communicate current communication center status to customers attempting to reach the center for service. Older call-centers relying on COST communication techniques simply play recorded messages, the recordings informing the customers of the status of an agent being called. More advanced communication centers, including multimedia centers, have extensive automated services in place for interacting with customers in the event that no agents are available. Most of these services are IVR driven and inform callers of options, as well as status of those persons the callers are attempting to connect with.
Estimated call-waiting times may be determined during a call attempt and communicated to the caller through IVR interaction. The number of calls ahead of a current calls may also be provided as status information. A customer must invest the time and inconvenience of placing a call to the communication center in order to receive the status information. As described above, this information is made available through IVR interaction in prior art systems. In general, a call placed into the communications center must be paid for either by the customer placing the call, or by the center itself. It has occurred to the inventor that money and center resource could be conserved by providing status information to customers without requiring a physical call to be placed to the center.
A network-based system known to the inventor and taught in a separate application enables users of the system to obtain current agent-status information related to agents of an information-source facility connected to the network before initiating contact with the agent or agents of the information-source facility. The system uses a status-server node connected to the information-source facility (communication center) and to the network. The system also uses an interface-server node connected to the status node and to the network. The status-server node is accessible to the interface node by virtue of the network connectivity. A user operating a network-capable appliance connects to the interface node by virtue of network connection capability. Software distributed on at least the status and interface server nodes enables distribution of the agent-status information to the user operating the appliance.
The agent-status information is accessed from the status server node connected to the communication center by the interfacing server node and delivered to the requesting user over the operating network. The system components communicate according to any one of several known Instant Messaging protocols such as IMPP-RFC 2778. An enhancement to the above system enables agents in dialogue with users to be able to view availability status and callback preferences established at the users end.
The enhanced system uses a status server node connected to the information-source facility (communication center) and to the network and an interfacing server node connected to the first server node and to the network. The interfacing server node is accessible from the status server node by virtue of the network connectivity. A client accesses the interface server node using a network-capable appliance connected to the network.
The client either posts his or her status information at the interfacing server node, or the interfacing server node polls the client for status while the client is connected. An agent-user operating from a LAN connected agent workstation has access to the status server node, which in turn polls the interfacing server node. Software distributed on both server nodes enables distribution of the client-status information to requesting agents. The agent-user operating the agent workstation accesses the status server node and subscribes to the client-status information about one or more clients. The client-status information is accessed from the interfacing server node by the status server node and delivered to the requesting agent-user. The above-described system uses a presence protocol to propagate data from node to node on the network.
A personal interaction system for enabling customers of a communication center to change and manipulate personal information, as well as to view personalized interaction and resource data from a single interface is also known to the inventor and is taught in a separate application. The system incorporates a personalized interaction application for enabling client interaction with communication-center resources and brokerage of presence information related to both agents of the communication center and to clients of the center.
The interaction application comprises an interactive user interface for posting client data and for receiving and displaying agent data and interaction data, a brokering application for receiving data from both the client and the communication center for incorporation into the user interface and for managing propagation of instant messaging between a client and agents of the center and, a status monitoring and reporting application for monitoring and reporting agent status and client status and for accessing and serving communication center resource data.
A client accessing and interacting with the user interface portion of the application may add and edit personal information, request and receive product information, request and view current activity status within the communication center, and request and view personal interaction history recorded by the communication center without initiating and executing a live communication event to the center. In preferred embodiments, the application uses a presence protocol and is enhanced with instant messaging capability as described above with the agent availability and client status availability systems. Moreover, the functionality of all three systems may be combined into one system using one interface for the client.
As can be seen from the description the above, using an Instant Message protocol provides obvious advantages to both agents and clients operating in an IP environment hosted by a communication center. However, the task of monitoring and managing multiple states of agents operating within the center is quite formidable given prior-art methods. In state-of-the-art communication centers agents are responsible not only for handling a variety of communication-event types but also must typically manage more than one communication terminal or device. For example, COST interaction is typically handled by a COST telephone, while IP telephony is conducted with an IP-capable telephone or on a PC. An agent may also handled pager messages on a pager, e-mail messages on a PC, fax correspondence on a fax machine, or may have even other, non-electronic duties, communicated to his computer, such as filling out and stamping a document etc.
Prior art methods for monitoring agent states are typically CTI implementations executing on a central routing device or hosted on a central server connected by a LAN to participating agents. Therefore, all of the agent's possible communication means may not be accessible to the system. Moreover, resolution of agent states to single communication applications is not possible. An associated problem with implementing a centrally controlled agent monitoring system is lack of feasible scalability. For example, up-scaling such a system would require addition of more central servers and providing extensive integration solutions for various communication technologies.
Another issue is that many professional agents are accustomed to or required by regulations to use certain software implements and platforms related to their communication duties. Centrally controlled agent-state monitoring systems generally require all agents to use like software (communications applications) and be operating like platforms. In this case, new agents must be trained to use applications supported by the monitoring system. Still further, many clients of the communication center may use applications that agents also use, but which are not supported by a communication center's state-monitoring system. Therefore, some pending interactions, which are of importance to the center, may not take place because the supported mediums of communication were determined to be busy at the time of the interaction. Opportunities for communication may be missed although communication could have taken place if the specific application shared by the client and by the agent were known and reportable as a state-option to the customer.
There are many instances wherein detailed reporting of all of an agent's active states is useful, especially in instances of internal routing of interactions arriving within the communication center. Observing applications used in current communication centers do not have sufficient access to all of an agent's possible activity states as may be related to individual communications mediums and especially related to specific communications applications as noted above. Further, existing applications are typically centralized and difficult to scale.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a distributed system for monitoring and reporting agent states and communication abilities to subscribing applications that does not require management from a central server or expensive software integration solutions. Such a system would be easily scalable and much more reliable than current centrally controlled systems.